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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22623673">HBIC</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jerevinan/pseuds/Jerevinan'>Jerevinan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kingdom Hearts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Dandelions, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers, There's a plot, recompleted nobodies</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 08:47:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,079</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22623673</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jerevinan/pseuds/Jerevinan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Now that Elrena and Lauriam have been recompleted, they have a personal mission: find Strelitzia.</p><p>I endorse reading fics on AO3's website, not a cash-grabbing app</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Elrena/Lauriam (Kingdom Hearts)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>28</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>HBIC</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I want my favorite trio, and some of this diverges from canon, some of it changes bits of it... Especially since we don't know everything yet, and I'm not waiting around for several years to find out whether or not Nomura will let me have my favorite trio. </p><p>HBIC stands for "Head Bitches in Charge", I was going to think of a proper title, but that's exactly how I see Elrena and Lauriam in this fic...</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her memories didn’t come back all at once. </p><p>It started with little things, like her name and the fashion she wore as Elrena. The pain settled in next—an ache of desire for friends she would never see again, for sharing moments with them and knowing they would always remain in her past.</p><p>She had to sit it out. Let it hit in waves. Chirithy. Where did her Chirithy go? What happened to Daybreak Town?</p><p>Lauriam sat next to her, staring wistfully at the view of Thebes. There was a hardness in his eyes, one that Elrena felt in her heart as well. Did their time as nobodies toughen them, or was it all that happened in their past? As the memories returned to them, they only had pieces to connect, and some…</p><p>Some didn’t connect at all.</p><p>Were they forgotten? Never resolved?</p><p>Strelitzia’s disappearance haunted them. The last clue Elrena remembered was a bit of noise in a string of corrupted data, an echo of a girl before her disappearance. Before they could find out much more and look into why, things went irreversibly wrong. </p><p>The ark. Maleficent. Memory loss, time travel—all the clues disappeared in the centuries they zipped through to reach their present time. </p><p>Despite that, Elrena made a foolish promise as the two looked out over Thebes.</p><p>“We’ll find her this time.”</p><p>Lauriam opened his mouth in surprise but didn’t turn to her. A few seconds passed before he finally closed his eyes and smiled bracingly.  </p><p>“Yes. Let’s do that.” His fingers curled around her hand.</p><p>“Of all the worlds, why’d we end up in this one?” Elrena crinkled her nose and stared off in the distance at Mount Olympus. She hated hero types, and no world attracted them better than this one. Back in Daybreak Town, when they would gather lux in distant worlds, she visited the coliseum for fights. Well, a projection of it, as it turned out. “Do you think we’ll find any clues here?”</p><p>“We should look for anyone we recognize.”</p><p>Elrena sighed heavily and thought about Sora’s group and the former Organization members. “That’s such a pain. Do we even <i>like</i> any of those people?” </p><p>Lauriam only laughed in a way that captured an essence of his sadness. “Most of them hate us, don’t they?”</p><p><i>Hate</i>. It shouldn’t have bothered her. It certainly didn’t bother Larxene. But Elrena didn’t feel anything strong enough to hate anyone. If anyone annoyed or disgusted her, she moved on. They weren’t worth the trouble or thought. How she behaved as Elrena would’ve been better described as indifference.</p><p>Not that she hadn’t ever been close to anyone. There was Lauriam, her Chirithy, and Strelitzia.  </p><p>Elrena let out another sigh, much longer than the last one. If there was any reason to fraternize with the old Organization members or Sora’s gang, it would be for Strelitzia. Not because any of them would know anything, but their connections might have pointed the pair to someone who did. As union leader, Lauriam must have known a lot of people back then. If they were to find those other leaders or even some Dandelions, all the gaps in their memories could connect. </p><p>Lauriam and Elrena met because of Strelitzia—because that little girl used to consider Elrena a friend. The feeling might not have been entirely mutual. Sure, they got along on missions. Strelitzia used to gift her with important medals to fix to her keyblade.</p><p>Keyblade.</p><p>Elrena held out her hand, palm facing Mount Olympus. What did she use to materialize one in the past? Her nose scrunched up in focus, pressure building behind her forehead. No, that only hurt. Fuck. How the hell did she lose the ability to wield one? What had she done to be worthy in the first place? </p><p>Whatever it was, she couldn’t find it again. Her palm waited for the snap of magic, but it didn’t come. She must have looked ridiculous, flapping the tips of her fingers together to will it forward only to be denied its power. </p><p>“What are you doing?” asked Lauriam.</p><p>“Trying,” she said through gritted teeth, “to summon a keyblade.”</p><p>His laughter was full of mirth, loud enough it echoed. “You look constipated.”</p><p>Her elbow met his ribcage, cutting off all his giggles with a gasp. “Shut. Up.” She tilted her head at him. “Can you do it?”</p><p>“I’m not trying.” His eyebrows dipped for a minute in a twinge of pain before he cast it away with a smile. “Don’t I have a scythe now?”</p><p>“It’s not the same.” Even in Olympus, they were everywhere. Elrena was tired of them. “Remember when we needed medals for them? Wasn’t that weird? I don’t remember what the medals looked like…” Elrena tapped her lip with her finger. </p><p>“We went to holograms, fake locations. Everything was weird back then.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Lauriam exhaled slowly and stared out at Mount Olympus. “I don’t know.”</p><p>“Isn’t that annoying?” Elrena huffed and stared up at the sky. They knew as little about their past as they did their present. “At least we’re together. We’ll figure something out.” A mean edge made it into the laughter that followed. “We’re tougher than most.”</p><p>Lauriam only nodded.</p><p>“What about Chirithy?” she asked. “We can’t summon keyblades, but can we call our Chirithies?”</p><p>“Hmm.” Lauriam pursed his lips together. “I didn’t really talk to mine.”</p><p>An itchy feeling webbed across Elrena’s cheeks, and she turned so he couldn’t see her blush. How often had she spoken with hers? They used to be close, playfully insulting one another. She could turn to Chirithy for advice, and they would always know what to do.</p><p>She could have used her Chirithy to ask where they were supposed to go from Olympus and how to move between the worlds without the dark corridors.</p><p>“That stupid boy, I didn’t ask to be ‘recompleted’,” she moaned. “We need a gummi ship.”</p><p>“There’s a shop moogle in the city.”</p><p>“Great. Now to figure out where to go.”</p><p>“Radiant Garden.”</p><p>Oh. Ansem the Wise and his apprentices. “You had to pick the people who like us the least to talk to first.”</p><p>“We don’t have to go right away.”</p><p>Despite his words, she sensed his urgency. They had skipped forward into the future without proper memory and then become pieces. How much time to find Strelitzia had been lost? </p><p>She stood, his hand grasped in hers, and pulled him into the heart of Thebes.</p>
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